peekaboo

life hides its teeth behind a smile, and sometimes, a kiss

the first time i learned that life was playing games, it didn't strike me as cruel - it seemed clever. like it knew something i didn't. it kept things up its sleeve - people, years, versions of myself i would never see again - and showed them to me only long enough to fall in love with before hiding them away again. peekaboo, it seemed to say. and i laughed, like a child because back then i believed that whatever could disappear that fast must return equally as quick.

but time is not fair. it steals things and puts them away where your hands cannot find them. the laughter you made together on the floor at 2 a.m. - disappeared. the plans you scribbled in the corners of notebooks you no longer open - erased. even the way someone used to look at you like you were something soft - an illusion. now you sit in rooms they used to know, rehearsing sentences in your head like incantations that would bring something back. they never do.

(from pinterest)

the thing about being caught off guard isn’t the surprise - it’s how easily it becomes a pattern. one moment you’re fine, and the next you’re standing in the middle of a familiar street, realizing the person who made it feel like home hasn’t called in months. and somehow, you’re still hoping they might. life doesn’t announce its exits. it just slips out the side door, quietly, while you’re still making tea for two.

you begin to notice it in everything - the way the light intrudes without checking with you first, the way people forget to mean what they say. the way joy comes in borrowed attire and sorrow lingers long enough to unload. and somehow, you find space for it. you learn to lay the table for absence. to smile in the silence. to call it peace when no one arrives.

but occasionally, the surprise is gentle. occasionally it's a message you'd given up waiting to receive. occasionally it's the silent discovery that the sorrow no longer clings to you with the same intensity. occasionally it's you - laughing, actually laughing, without quantifying the noise. peekaboo, life whispers once more - and this time, it doesn't feel like a trick. it feels like the gentle return of something you didn't realize you still missed. like joy creeping back on hands and knees, sheepishly, half-forgotten, but yours.

and perhaps that is the one genuine promise of life: that things will depart, and return differently. not necessarily better. just… different. you give up running full circles. you learn to settle for crescents. you give up wondering if it will last, and wonder if it's enough, for now.

the most difficult is understanding how much we give our hearts without knowing the game's already begun. how much we fall for deceptions coated with honesty. how much we confuse a moment with a map. you find yourself loving people because of how they made you feel once - not because of how they feel now. you keep reading on prior pages hoping the story will shift. it won't.

but you also learn to endure it. to grasp joy without waiting for it to remain for supper. to spread your arms to the unknown, though you've been scalded by it before. to welcome each appearance without inquiring how long it will linger. peekaboo, life whispers - and you smile now, as if you knew it was coming. as if you've learned to adore even the vanishing.

because perhaps this is all any of us are doing - searching for significance in the spaces between concealment and discovery. perhaps joy was never intended to be possessed. perhaps love was never intended to be known. perhaps the loveliness is in the shock - in the blink, the hesitation, the unveiling.

peekaboo, life says. and for once, you don’t flinch.

you just smile. and say - i see you.